According to Statistics Canada, 46% of all Canadians have provided care to family members at some time in their lives. We know little however about the cumulative lifetime impact of caregiving on carers' later life.
Groundbreaking newly published research by our "Transitions and Impact on Later Life" Research Cluster used the care histories of 3,299 adults 65+ from Statistics Canada's 2012 General Social Survey to identify five distinct lifetime pathways of the caregiving experience. By moving beyond 'snapshots' of family care to examine family care across the life course, Norah Keating (University of Alberta, Faculty of ALES) and her team hopes to use the results as a framework to identify carers at greatest risk of poor health, social isolation and poverty in later life to better target policy interventions.
You can read a two-page research recap on the Vanier Institute of the Family website and access the full Open Access article "Life course trajectories of family care" through Intenga Connect.